PBS’ follow up to Erin Brockovich left key details out

PBS NewsHour story on chromium contamination was short on context, long on fear.

Recently, PBS NewsHour ran a two-part investigative story that must have seemed to have all the elements of a compelling piece. There was a relatively unknown but apparently widespread carcinogen and a great hook—it was tied to the story of contaminated water behind the film Erin Brockovich. Issues relating to public health threats demand careful and thorough reporting. Unfortunately, those qualities were at times absent from the PBS story.

The story focused on hexavalent chromium (Cr6+) in drinking water. Most chromium is trivalent, which isn’t very soluble in water. When oxidized to hexavalent chromium, however, it becomes mobile. Unlike the trivalent variety, hexavalent chromium is carcinogenic. It's much worse if inhaled, but there’s evidence that it is dangerous when ingested as well. As the NewsHour story noted, recent sampling has shown that hexavalent chromium is present in drinking water across the country. Does that mean we have a public health crisis on our hands, caused by shockingly widespread contamination? Let’s slow down and get some context.

Meet the metal

Hexavalent chromium occurs naturally. That’s a rather important fact never mentioned in the NewsHour story, which describes the water as “tainted” by industrial chemicals. Chromium, like many elements, is present in Earth’s crust. Some types of rock have more than others, but it’s actually a little bit more common than copper or zinc—the average concentration in the upper crust is something like 90 parts per million. Oxidize some of that chromium to the hexavalent state, and it can be mobilized into groundwater. If hexavalent chromium is showing up in wells nearly everywhere we look, it might be because it’s naturally present rather than a ubiquitous, human-introduced contaminant.

This story has many California connections, from the town of Hinkley that Erin Brockovich fought to protect to the California EPA’s high-profile examination of hexavalent chromium health risks. But the connections extend to geology. Serpentinite—California’s state rock—is one of the best rocks in which to look for chromium ore.

California also has collected a lot of data on the occurrence of chromium in drinking water. Of 6,565 public water supply wells sampled across the state, hexavalent chromium was detected (meaning that the concentration was greater than 1 part per billion) in nearly half. It’s mostly present in the 1 to 8 parts per billion range, but it can be higher. In Hinkley, California determined that anything up to 3 parts per billion should be considered background rather than a result of the contamination there (contamination produced much higher concentrations).

While it can sound scary to hear that a potentially hazardous compound was detected in your water, it’s the concentration that determines the risk. The NewsHour story focused on a study of hexavalent chromium in water around a chromium ore mining operation in China. The 1987 study found a statistically significant increase in certain cancer rates for the villages with higher concentrations of hexavalent chromium in their water. Ergo, the story implies, the hexavalent chromium in your water may be giving you cancer, too.

But the concentrations in those Chinese villages were astronomical—as high as 20,000 parts per billion. A summary in the journal Epidemiology describes it as “perhaps the highest exposure to hexavalent chromium in water that will ever be experienced by a population large enough to estimate risks of cancer.” A pair of studies on populations in the US with low-level exposures failed to find much of a correlation—although one did find a slight link to lung cancer. (Again, the risk from inhalation is better understood.) Laboratory studies with rats have indeed shown hexavalent chromium in water to be carcinogenic, but extrapolating this sort of result down to small doses is often tough.

A 2010 Environmental Working Group study sampled water from 35 US cities and reported that hexavalent chromium had been detected in 31 of those cities. But at what concentrations? Only one city had concentrations greater than 2 parts per billion—Norman, Oklahoma at 12.9 parts per billion. A recently completed study that followed up on the results in Madison, WI found concentrations of up to 2 parts per billion in municipal wells—and chromium as high as 30,000 parts per billion in bedrock samples from those wells. The evidence points to a natural source for the hexavalent chromium in the water.

The EPA drinking water standard for total chromium is 100 parts per billion, but that standard is currently being reviewed. California has chosen a “Public Health Goal” of 0.02 parts per billion. We often think of such standards as the line between safe and unsafe exposures, but the real world isn’t so cut-and-dried. The eventual drinking water standard will only be set as close to the Public Health Goal “as is economically and technically feasible.” And the Public Health Goal for hexavalent chromium is based on a one-in-a-million cancer risk. That is, “for every million people who drink two liters of water with that level of [hexavalent chromium] daily for 70 years, no more than one person would be expected to develop cancer from exposure to [hexavalent chromium].”

All these complexities—natural sources, levels of exposure, etc.—were largely left out of the NewsHour report.

At one point in the NewsHour story, Erin Brockovich talks about a crowd-sourced map of cancer clusters she has organized. Her assertion that hexavalent chromium in drinking water is likely the cause of most of the cancer hotspots went completely unchallenged. And the concept itself relies on the dubious assumption that the clusters have local causes. (In reality, cancer clusters are often statistical flukes.) It also assumes that hexavalent chromium is the result of industrial contamination rather than occurring naturally across broad regions.

As anthropogenic groundwater contaminants go, hexavalent chromium isn’t terribly common—unlike petroleum or chlorinated solvents. It’s hard to imagine that industrial releases of hexavalent chromium could be impacting such an astounding number of public wells. If the hexavalent chromium is naturally occurring, the discussion about what’s acceptable and what to do about it becomes a lot more nuanced. Nuance is not what the NewsHour report delivered.

Muddying the waters

It isn’t the first story ever to lack appropriate context, so why has it drawn my ire? Stories like this scare the bejeezus out of people. In a blog post accompanying his story, reporter Miles O’Brien reveals that he had the tap water in his apartment tested while working on this story. When the results showed a concentration of 0.19 parts per billion, he started filtering his water for fear of the cancer risk. After all, as he puts it, “That is ten times more [hexavalent chromium] than the Cal/EPA public health goal.” (A related post helps readers select an expensive filtration system of their own.)

The Environmental Working Group study mentioned above that found hexavalent chromium in 31 cities claims that “[a]t least 74 million Americans in 42 states drink chromium-polluted tap water, much of it likely in the cancer-causing hexavalent form.” Still thirsty? How many people are going to start buying bottled water because of this—water that simply comes from a well somewhere else and might contain just as much hexavalent chromium?

Apart from frightening people who already lead stress-filled lives, claims like this can undermine the actual science (as well as the journalists reporting it). We’ve all heard someone dismiss a health report with, “Whatever, they say everything gives you cancer.”

This particular presentation also chose a common storyline: it pitted plucky environmental watchdogs against corporate mouthpieces. While it may make for good TV, it’s not the best way to establish the facts. What if the corporate lobbyist is right about something? What if the environmental advocate is mistaken? It’s ultimately the journalist’s responsibility to find the experts who can present both the evidence and the uncertainty, rather than letting interested parties have their say unchallenged.

In this shallow, adversarial context, emotions often come to the forefront. And places where contamination has occurred, like Hinkley, provide examples of how damaging these emotions can be. Residents can feel scared, frustrated, and helpless. They’re suddenly exposed to a torrent of new information they have to absorb. They want to protect themselves and their families, and they’re wary of dishonesty and corruption. Trust breaks down, and misunderstanding runs amok.

The story mentions that residents of Hinkley are now terrified that they’re being poisoned with arsenic and manganese, as well—something they blame on the facility that caused the hexavalent chromium contamination. There’s a pretty good chance that these elements had naturally been present all along but hadn’t been tested for or drawn attention before.

It’s so difficult to inject complex facts and rational evaluation into charged issues like this, which makes it all the more critical that media reports take care to do so. While the NewsHour story raises fair questions about industry interference with the development of a hexavalent chromium public health standard, it also fans the flames of chemophobia. The intent was undoubtedly to inform, but the result was confusion.

When Ars asked NewsHour to comment on these concerns, a spokesperson for the program responded, "The Newshour’s two-part report on chromium 6 in drinking water supplies examined arguments about levels of safety and about the EPA’s process for making that determination. We included different points of view in our reports: those of affected residents, environmental activists, industry spokespeople, and scientists. The EPA refused to grant an interview, and we did our best to represent the agency’s position. Any specific comment should be viewed in the context of the entire report."

But that approach—letting everyone have their say, without any critical evaluation—is part of the problem. This is not a question of differing points of view, but one of carefully sifting the knowns and unknowns. Presenting opposing perspectives and leaving the viewer to decide is not the way to communicate science, and it doesn't excuse broadcasting misleading or incomplete information.

This article mistakenly referenced the book "A Civil Action" as the basis for the film "Erin Brockovich". The book, which became a movie of the same name, was written about a lawsuit over chlorinated solvent contamination in Woburn, Massachussets.

Note: While I am employed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, views expressed are my own and should in no way be construed as representing the department.

155 Reader Comments

Well, regardless of what the true case is, this article contains at least one overstatement itself: "How many people are going to start buying bottled water because of this—water that simply comes from a well somewhere else and might contain just as much hexavalent chromium?"

Bottled water is almost always run through a reverse-osmosis filtering system. And chromium, as a heavy metal, can't get through. So, No.

edit: as others have pointed out, I probably overstated the case with "almost always". I checked 4: Dasani and Aquafina do, as well as Safeway's Refreshe, but Crystal Geyser doesn't, and probably "mineral waters" don't. House brands often do, because RO is an inexpensive way to purify just about any water into a drinkable state.

Well, regardless of what the true case is, this article contains at least one overstatement itself: "How many people are going to start buying bottled water because of this—water that simply comes from a well somewhere else and might contain just as much hexavalent chromium?"

Bottled water is almost always run through a reverse-osmosis filtering system. And chromium, as a heavy metal, can't get through. So, No.

I can't find any sources that support the claim that bottled water is almost always filtered using reverse osmosis. Can you? I know it's true for some brands, some of which add minerals back into the water to make up for taking out the original mineral content, but "almost always" is a pretty strong claim.

I haven't seen the PBS show or investigated this issue, just read the article above. It is such a rant I am disinclined to believe it. My reaction comes partly from the impressive amounts of money spent to shout down any issue which gets in the way of corporate profits. The cloud of confusion raised can mask both genuine problems needing attention and panicky over reaction.

I haven't seen the PBS show or investigated this issue, just read the article above. It is such a rant I am disinclined to believe it. My reaction comes partly from the impressive amounts of money spent to shout down any issue which gets in the way of corporate profits. The cloud of confusion raised can mask both genuine problems needing attention and panicky over reaction.

Normally Ars is better than this.

So based on your assumptions backed up by no evidence, an article which includes links to plenty of researchis a corporate shill piece? Good job there.

This is such a non-comparison I'm inclined to believe you don't even know how badly wrong you are.

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I haven't seen the PBS show or investigated this issue, just read the article above. It is such a rant I am disinclined to believe it.

What's ranty about it? It laid out the background, the state of the science on the issue, and pointed out how the NewsHour program failed to live up to their typically high journalistic standards for not bringing all that relevant info to the table.

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My reaction comes partly from the impressive amounts of money spent to shout down any issue which gets in the way of corporate profits.

So now Ars is shilling for industry. I don't suppose you'd care to produce some evidence?

I haven't seen the PBS show or investigated this issue, just read the article above. It is such a rant I am disinclined to believe it. My reaction comes partly from the impressive amounts of money spent to shout down any issue which gets in the way of corporate profits. The cloud of confusion raised can mask both genuine problems needing attention and panicky over reaction.

Normally Ars is better than this.

So based on your assumptions backed up by no evidence, an article which includes links to plenty of researchis a corporate shill piece? Good job there.

(Reasonable) skepticism should be applied both ways.

Indeed it should be. Including links to research does not make your argument magically unbiased.The existence and inclusion of facts on one front does not mean the argument you are making parallel to it isn't biased.

Indeed it should be. Including links to research does not make your argument magically unbiased.The existence and inclusion of facts on one front does not mean the argument you are making parallel to it isn't biased.

Reasonable skepticism is not the same as rejecting any claim you don't like and ignoring the resarch when it's presented and you have nothing to throw back. You will notice he said he hasn't even investigated the issue and is merely disinclined to belive Ars based on personal bias.

One person has brought up his own counterpoints and links and kudos to him (and those points were replied to). That's pretty different from "I think this is a corporate shill piece and therefore it is." that I'm seeing from a bunch of other people.

Indeed it should be. Including links to research does not make your argument magically unbiased.The existence and inclusion of facts on one front does not mean the argument you are making parallel to it isn't biased.

Reasonable skepticism is not the same as rejecting any claim you don't like and ignoring the resarch when it's presented and you have nothing to throw back. You will notice he said he hasn't even investigated the issue and is merely disinclined to belive Ars based on personal bias.

That is also a nice biased interpretation of what he said. He is disinclined to believe Ars based on the tone of the article. You are selling it like a personal grudge. Believing or disbelieving Ars is a personal bias.

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One person has brought up his own counterpoints and links and kudos to him (and those points were replied to). That's pretty different from "I think this is a corporate shill piece and therefore it is." that I'm seeing from a bunch of other people.

He then went on to further explain his disinclination which you are, again, overplaying to discredit his opinion.

PS. I also disliked the article both for its tone and its intent to discredit PBS via inference and illusion rather than direct counterargument.I was immediately suspicious once I hit "Hexavalent chromium occurs naturally."If PBS NewsHour's argument was that contamination was causing high rates of Cr(VI), then this article did nothing to counter that claim (though it wanted to LOOK like it did by talking about natural occurrences of Chromium) and is instead going after the presentation of their data. Once you get to "Muddying the Waters," it is made abundantly clear that this article is a personal bias against the program and what was presented.

Well, regardless of what the true case is, this article contains at least one overstatement itself: "How many people are going to start buying bottled water because of this—water that simply comes from a well somewhere else and might contain just as much hexavalent chromium?"

Bottled water is almost always run through a reverse-osmosis filtering system. And chromium, as a heavy metal, can't get through. So, No.

I can't find any sources that support the claim that bottled water is almost always filtered using reverse osmosis. Can you? I know it's true for some brands, some of which add minerals back into the water to make up for taking out the original mineral content, but "almost always" is a pretty strong claim.

Perhaps not almost always, but many major brands are. I checked four major US brands I could think of off the top of my head, Dasani, Aquafina, Safeway Refreshe and Crystal Geyser. Dasani and Aquafinas' site say they use RO, so does Refreshe, but Crystal Geyser uses a .1 micron filter.

It seems to me that this article muddies the waters far more than the Newshour report. Many of the issues the author brings into his argument are not in the PBS story (or mentioned in passing) because they are not pertinent.

Whether Cr-6 contamination is from a naturally occurring source or a man-made source has little to do with setting safe regulatory levels for the chemical.

The Newshour story does not "[focus] on a study of hexavalent chromium in water around a chromium ore mining operation in China." The China story is mentioned for 70 seconds and then only in context of the follow-up where PG&E hired the lead scientist of that study to re-examine his original conclusion. Unsurprisingly, the scientist reversed his findings. The CA-EPA examined the study data and came to the opposite conclusion. That is 70 seconds of 23:34 - hardly what a reasonable person would say constitutes "focus".

Neither does the story focus on cancer clusters and mentions the crowd-sourced map only in passing.

I would urge Ars readers to actually watch the Newshour story before commenting. The story does not seek to state unequivocally what the safe level for Cr-6 in water should be -- nor does it in my opinion attempt to fear monger. The overwhelming focus of the story is the frustratingly slow process the federal EPA uses to establish safe levels for chemicals in drinking water and the lack of transparency in that process. It presents many facets of a complex issue and directs viewers to further information and plenty of links from its science page so that they can make up their own minds based upon information instead of telling them what to think.

I wish all journalism was this incomplete. I wonder what story the author was watching and whether he is simply projecting his own views and using a straw man (PBS Newshour) to further those views.

I thought the most damming revelation was how the companies involved payed the chinese scientist in question to falsify his own research and to find nothing wrong with the thousands exposed to high levels of c6 when his own data didn't support his change of "heart". Hope they burn in hell.

" That is, “for every million people who drink two liters of water with that level of [hexavalent chromium] daily for 70 years, no more than one person would be expected to develop cancer from exposure to [hexavalent chromium].”

This probably also uses a linear, no threshold dose model, which assumes that at one-one millionth the dose you get one-one millionth the effect. But there is often a threshold below which there is no effect.

Let me know how relevant the percentages and statistics sound if you or someone close to you happen to be that unlucky person.

" That is, “for every million people who drink two liters of water with that level of [hexavalent chromium] daily for 70 years, no more than one person would be expected to develop cancer from exposure to [hexavalent chromium].”

This probably also uses a linear, no threshold dose model, which assumes that at one-one millionth the dose you get one-one millionth the effect. But there is often a threshold below which there is no effect.

Let me know how relevant the percentages and statistics sound if you or someone close to you happen to be that unlucky person.

IF the science shows no measurable effect, then it doesn't matter if you're that unlucky person. Exposed or not exposed to chromium at those levels, you would have gotten the cancer. Not measurable means not measurable. There's no evidence that the suspected mineral (or radiation dose) is the cause.

If you get sick and want to blame something without a sound scientific basis for that blame, well, I'll sympathize, because you're dying after all, but I certainly won't ask for society to spend it's treasure on your pet delusions.

This also reminds me of the silicone breast implant scare which lead to bankruptcies, massive payouts, and unnecessary medical procedures. All before the science came in and the product was quietly reintroduced. Or the supposed cancer clusters from power lines.

The list goes on and on. Emotion from anecdote seems to always trump the reality from science.

Maybe you haven't been following the news, but there was another silicon breast implant scandal that affected tens of thousands of women (via a manufacturer in France). It's on going.

Yes, but that has nothing to do with the safety of silicone implants, per se. What it has to do with is a sleaze ball using unapproved industrial silicone instead of safety tested medical silicone. So, essentially, your point is what?

" That is, “for every million people who drink two liters of water with that level of [hexavalent chromium] daily for 70 years, no more than one person would be expected to develop cancer from exposure to [hexavalent chromium].”

This probably also uses a linear, no threshold dose model, which assumes that at one-one millionth the dose you get one-one millionth the effect. But there is often a threshold below which there is no effect.

Let me know how relevant the percentages and statistics sound if you or someone close to you happen to be that unlucky person.

In the US there are 123 traffic related deaths per 1 million people PER YEAR.

Instantly going to "any deaths are unacceptable" is a laudable but naive sentiment. Kind of like seeing how people get rich on the lottery and deciding to invest all your savings into lotto tickets.

And when talking about statistics and chance people in general have a very poor intuition for how to behave. (Which is why lotteries exist after all.)

If you want to save lives, pick your battles and try to save as many people as you can. If you care about your friends and families advice them not to move to Chinese villages with heavy chemical industries in the vicinity.

Not sure why all the down votes when talking about poisoning our environment but to clarify... Sensationalism in these types of stories are in a sense needed in order to create controversy and then public awareness.

We are having to change what we consider background levels of poisons in our environment because we are constantly changing the playing field. One example would be Ceasium 137 - this has not occurred naturally in our environment for billions of years, and have it not been for nuclear advances (bomb testing, reactor contamination, etc...) everyone would agree that this stuff is BAD, and any amount no matter how small would increase your chances of cancer.

Now the real world - we created this isotope by nuclear tests and reactor failures, etc. Because of this we now have to account for background levels of this isotope, and now have "safe" levels due to the fact that there are tiny trace amounts everywhere. I am not saying that the background levels of this substance is going to cause cancer, but simply we created it and thus had to then account for it in our environment.

Going back to the sensationalism part - it is a needed evil when it comes to environmental concerns that "could" have a negative impact on living things, simply because if not nobody would listen. I reiterate that this article is interesting, and we see this type of stuff all the time, its never the entire story But just ending it saying well everything is within the norms means nothing nowadays because we are changing the "norms" based on how much we have already messed up our planet.

Presenting opposing perspectives and leaving the viewer to decide is not the way to communicate science,

Listening to opposing points of view is the way that I make decisions.

When only one scientist is presenting their opinion, I immediately become concerned about bias. For instance again from the article;

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How many people are going to start buying bottled water because of this—water that simply comes from a well somewhere else and might contain just as much hexavalent chromium?

Is this science or just an unsupported opinion.- Bottled water "might" contain a contaminant? It is also possible that bottled water might not contain a contaminant.How can a person find out?

I did the research for the water that my family drinks. We get water from a local company that uses reverse osmosis and posts their testing results. - We also buy portable bottled water from companies which publish results such as Arrowhead.http://www.nestle-watersna.com/asset-li ... AR_ENG.pdf

In both cases a customer can make an informed choice.

* But if there is a belief that bottled water has increased cancer rates because of hexavalent chromium or another contaminant, then where is the evidence? Where is the lawsuit about that?

It is a shame Ars isn't required reading, if it was people might understand that science is in the details not the emotions.

im sorry but this author, himself, is writing in an emotional nature. in the comment section we see people criticizing this rebuttal of PBS, simply because the rebuttal is a 'rant'. the author himself states clearly that he is motivated to write out of anger. science and emotion have a long history, and many scientists have deep emotions. in the end, science itself is bigger than any of us, we, bags of feelings, stumble into it less rather than often.

While I totally agree with your complaint and articulation, I think this statement is problematic:

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There’s a pretty good chance that these elements had naturally been present all along but hadn’t been tested for or drawn attention before.

Unless I missed something, you also have not quantified the probabilities and seem to indicate little study has been done on the natural quantities of the metal in water. Qualifying the chance as "pretty good" isn't really supported by your evidence.

While I also think that there are tons of things that could cause one to worry about a cancer risk or shortened lifespan (the worry itself not doubt), people should be much more aware of what is in their drinking water. For Example, far too many large cities and homes still have lead water pipes adding lead content to their drinking water which is known to be problematic and their lack of understanding borders on criminal since there are many simple things one can do to minimize the impact of it (like running your water in your house for a bit if it was sitting for a while).

Yet another case of mainstream media choosing sensationalism over realism.

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But that approach—letting everyone have their say, without any critical evaluation—is part of the problem.

For some reason this reminds me of quack medicine - acupuncture and chiropractic, etc. "We must present both sides" assumes that "both sides" have a valid contribution. When absolutely no properly conducted double-blinded study has shown any statistically significant impact from an intervention, it is safe to assume that the intervention is a waste of money.

Of course, as a result of this story there will almost certainly be money wasted trying to "clean up" water that is not unsafe and trying to "bring to justice" companies that are not creating a health hazard. And of course water filter manufacturers will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Thanks Scott, great analysis and very well researched. I am irked by the widely held assumption that corporations are ready to poison us all if it will make a buck, while environmentalists and regulators are pure in heart. I don't mind skepticism of business, I just think it applies equally to the other side too. There are so many examples of evironmentalists or regulators throwing out statistics that are wildly out of context, or simply made up, which then get widely reported by an unquestioning media.

Our water is cleaner today than ever primarily because of regulation, which is a good thing. But at this point I see it as a good thing that the EPA doesn't move too quickly in tightening regulations even further. There are too many times public policy has been shaped by irrational fear leading to solutions that cause more harm than good.

What's the rationality behind California's "public health goal" of one-in-a-million? If it's just a goal, why not set it at the level where there will be no measurable likelihood of causing anyone cancer? They set the goal knowing it's not economically or technically feasible, so why make it your goal to give one person in a million cancer? Just asking.

Well, regardless of what the true case is, this article contains at least one overstatement itself: "How many people are going to start buying bottled water because of this—water that simply comes from a well somewhere else and might contain just as much hexavalent chromium?"

Bottled water is almost always run through a reverse-osmosis filtering system. And chromium, as a heavy metal, can't get through. So, No.

I can't find any sources that support the claim that bottled water is almost always filtered using reverse osmosis. Can you? I know it's true for some brands, some of which add minerals back into the water to make up for taking out the original mineral content, but "almost always" is a pretty strong claim.

Perhaps not almost always, but many major brands are. I checked four major US brands I could think of off the top of my head, Dasani, Aquafina, Safeway Refreshe and Crystal Geyser. Dasani and Aquafinas' site say they use RO, so does Refreshe, but Crystal Geyser uses a .1 micron filter.

Whereas Evian and Fiji are just filtered, and the Nestle brands (Arrowhead, Calistoga, Deer Park, Ice Mountain, Ozarka, Poland Springs) may be RO or distilled (their site says one or the other will be used).

It was a while ago so I don't have any links to the studies. But, I remember not too long after this whole contamination scare they checked the workers at the industrial plants they blamed for the contamination, and other plants where they worked with large amounts of hexavalent chromium. The cancer rates of the the workers most directly exposed was less than the average. Not to say they weren't an anomaly and high exposure doesn't lead to higher rates of cancer, but it doesn't help their case when people exposed to higher quantities were healthier than most.

Thanks for calling out NewsHour's report. Many programs throw a bunch of opinions at the audience and pretend it’s journalism. It happens all the time and I wish it would change, but for some reason I expect better from PBS.

It's becoming increasingly common in the name of "balance".

You have a credible scientist presenting their view in a dry, droll manner, with plenty of statistics, then you have a professional public speaker come on and present the opposing case in a persuasive manner with plenty of emotional language, but without any actual facts.

The audience is drawn to the latter approach, because it is more engaging.

It should be up to the journalists to call their interviewees on the bullshit, whether they're claiming second-hand smoke is safe, the climate is cooling, or alkalized parsnip juice cures cancer.

Instead, the journalists say: "we'll let you decide".

No. The audience has no basis to make a decision on the veracity of the interviewees based on a three minute snippet from an interview. They don't have the resources or background knowledge to fact check what was said. That should be the job of the journalists.

If a current affairs programme is going to report science, they need to have reputable scientists on-board to do some fact-checking on what is being said, and to filter out the nonsense. Otherwise they are being negligent by airing arguments that have not even passed any form of review.

Now, if Ars could just bring itself to adopt the same balanced and critical approach to the Marcott study and ones like it on climate matters, it could recover both readers and the respect that is required to regain them.

If you truly care about the public's knowledge, you should seriously consider pouring this information into Wikipedia. People use Wikipedia as the conglomeration of all Internet knowledge, and right now it says nothing about the facts you speak of here. I'd put something in myself, but my writing skills aren't nearly as good as yours.

Thanks for calling out NewsHour's report. Many programs throw a bunch of opinions at the audience and pretend it’s journalism. It happens all the time and I wish it would change, but for some reason I expect better from PBS.

It's becoming increasingly common in the name of "balance".

You have a credible scientist presenting their view in a dry, droll manner, with plenty of statistics, then you have a professional public speaker come on and present the opposing case in a persuasive manner with plenty of emotional language, but without any actual facts.

The audience is drawn to the latter approach, because it is more engaging.

It should be up to the journalists to call their interviewees on the bullshit, whether they're claiming second-hand smoke is safe, the climate is cooling, or alkalized parsnip juice cures cancer.

Instead, the journalists say: "we'll let you decide".

No. The audience has no basis to make a decision on the veracity of the interviewees based on a three minute snippet from an interview. They don't have the resources or background knowledge to fact check what was said. That should be the job of the journalists.

If a current affairs programme is going to report science, they need to have reputable scientists on-board to do some fact-checking on what is being said, and to filter out the nonsense. Otherwise they are being negligent by airing arguments that have not even passed any form of review.

If the transcripts were the actual show (I didn't watch the videos), then that is not what happened, despite that being what the article author presented as happening.

Now, if Ars could just bring itself to adopt the same balanced and critical approach to the Marcott study and ones like it on climate matters, it could recover both readers and the respect that is required to regain them.

It is possible, this shows it.

Whether or not this is a joke post, it perfectly exemplifies my previous points.

And there in lies the problem. Most of these broadcasts and publications aren't about science or facts. It's about ratings. Facts are boring. Controversy makes for good TV. We are all to blame, as we become less educated and bombarded with information, we neglect to hold people accountable, be they politicians, journalists and broadcasters, and instead simply clamor for entertainment, sometimes in the guise of "science." I don't pretend to think we have enough hours in the day to individually fact check every story about our world that comes across the wires, but the sources of objective peer-review accessible to the (becoming more uneducated) masses are dwindling, and I believe you can make the argument that as goes journalistic integrity, so goes fact-based emotionless civil discourse.

That's all true, but I don't think it's relevant to this case. I've seen enough NewsHour to believe that they are far more interested in informing than in getting ratings (something that is largely irrelevant in the PBS world, anyway). No, this sounds like simply poor reporting, probably because those involved aren't sufficiently science literate to realize they were being snowed (perhaps unintentionally) by the various stakeholders in this argument, since they fell back on the journalistic "standard" of "present all sides".

For a number of reasons, both our govt and our media are woefully undereducated in science, and this is the sort of problem it causes even when the involved parties are trying to do what's best. (It gets worse when some or all if the involved parties have ulterior motives.)

That's all true, but I don't think it's relevant to this case. I've seen enough NewsHour to believe that they are far more interested in informing than in getting ratings (something that is largely irrelevant in the PBS world, anyway). No, this sounds like simply poor reporting, probably because those involved aren't sufficiently science literate to realize they were being snowed (perhaps unintentionally) by the various stakeholders in this argument, since they fell back on the journalistic "standard" of "present all sides".

This is an increasing problem for public broadcasting. I've recently heard NPR reporters using UCS spokespeople as the "other side" or even as the "neutral, informative" side in various stories. UCS is nothing but a superstition advocacy group and wouldn't know science if it hit them in the face. Yet, somehow, they convince NPR reporters to use them as a source in their stories.

I think it is lazy journalists. Some of these NGOs must make it a point to have spokespeople easily available and on tap for any reporter who wants an authoritative sounding statement. If the reporter is lazy or not well educated, they fall for the easy snow job these advocacy groups offer.

Now, if Ars could just bring itself to adopt the same balanced and critical approach to the Marcott study and ones like it on climate matters, it could recover both readers and the respect that is required to regain them.

It is possible, this shows it.

The last time you brought up a need to criticize the Marcotte study, i asked you to detail its flaws. You never responded. I'll ask you again. If you don't respond, i'll assume you're trolling.

I don't even want to get in to whether the science section is losing either respect or readers...

I certainly share your frustration on the obvious shortcomings in science communication in various news outlets, especially when it comes to potentially controversial issues, such as chemicals in the environment.

But, although it might be tempting to bash a certain piece of news, it would be good to actually hold your own critiques to the higher standard that you demand.

You write:

Quote:

Hexavalent chromium occurs naturally.

Sure. So what? So do other (heavy) metals. But whether or not the compound is "natural" (which would actually hold true for all chemicals, strictly speaking) does not have any bearing on the question whether or not a certain concentration is risky for human consumption or not.

Quote:

If hexavalent chromium is showing up in wells nearly everywhere we look, it might be because it’s naturally present rather than a ubiquitous, human-introduced contaminant.

Sure. And it "might be" because the compound is mined and has seen heavy use in a broad range of industries. I'm not sure how helpful it is, to simply mention the vague possibility that the Cr-6 might be emitted from natural sources. And, as far as I can tell, your text does not do more than that.

Quote:

A pair of studies on populations in the US with low-level exposures failed to find much of a correlation—although one did find a slight link to lung cancer.

Failed to find "much" of a correlation? A "slight" link to lung cancer? Some actual information - instead of such weasel words - might actually be helpful for the reader.

Quote:

[...] but extrapolating this sort of result down to small doses is often tough

Indeed. But that doesn't constitute an argument that the situation is safe, i.e. that the Newshour piece was exaggerating.

Quote:

The eventual drinking water standard will only be set as close to the Public Health Goal “as is economically and technically feasible.

You earlier on wrote that in 31 out of 35 cities Cr-6 was detected. For me that qualifies as "terribly common".

Quote:

It’s hard to imagine that industrial releases of hexavalent chromium could be impacting such an astounding number of public wells.

Why? You just implied that for petroleum and chlorinated solvents it would be very much imaginable. And the various forms of chrome are used almost everywhere. Starting with steel production (not exactly a rare product), but also in numerous uses in chemical industry, dye production, wood preservation, leather tanning, chrome plating, etc. etc,...

Quote:

If the hexavalent chromium is naturally occurring, the discussion about what’s acceptable and what to do about it becomes a lot more nuanced.

Again, you are mixing things here that do not really go together. Why should the fact that Cr-6 is (partly) coming from natural sources have an impact on the question whether a certain concentration is acceptable for human consumption? I mean, you certainly wouldn't argue that one should eat rotten food, just because the bacteria are 100% natural.

Again, I share you call for a more nuanced discussion. But you'd better check your own texts first.